Subscribe

September 2010

September 09, 2010

So, having heard about all my Oregon Chai goodness, are you jealous yet? Never fear, you can have your own! I've been using both the mug and the cup (in fact, I'm drinking mint iced tea out of the iced tea cup right now). How do you win one of the following?

10-oz. canister sample paired with the hot mug

10-oz. sample with the double-walled acrylic reusable iced tea cup.

You have a couple of options.

If you aren't already a Facebook fan, "like" The Tea Scoop (see the sidebar).

Get a friend to "like" the Tea Scoop and tag you in a wall post (@username). This is a good one because you both get a chance to win!

Follow theteascoop on Twitter and post a link to The Tea Scoop on your Twitter. Use #theteascoop.

Now that cooler weather is coming around again, I'm going to be drinking a lot of chai. Something about the spiciness of chai just makes me feel even warmer. A lot of time, I'll drink chai black, reveling in the spiciness, but other times I'll add milk and sugar to turn my cuppa into a comfort beverage, maybe even an alternative to dessert. Now, normally I'm not a fan of powdered chai mixes. Most varieties that I've tried, I've poured out after a single sip. Not the case with Oregon Chai. Now, there's a bit of a backstory here.

Around ten years ago, on a blustery wintry evening, a friend and I ducked into a Cosi to get the chill off before heading to a movie. I had planned on ordering my typical mocha, but she insisted that i had to try a chai latte. I loved it instantly, and later found out that they used Oregon Chai brand.

As the years passed and I fell more deeply in love with tea, I moved away from instant gratification. When Oregon Chai contacted me and asked me if I wanted to review their products, I hesitated. I love free stuff, but I worried that I would find it just as shallow and artificial as other instant chai powders. All the same, I thought I would give it a try out of nostalgia.

When the box arrived, like I said before, they sent me lots of other goodies. But the powdered stuff was actually pretty good. It had more depth and no artificial flavor at all. The ingredients list was pretty readable. My only complaint was that it was a little too sweet.

September 03, 2010

Recently, our Target unveiled their new expanded grocery section, as Targets across the country are beginning to do. Since our Target is across the street, this is a real boon to our existence. Just about anything we need in a pinch can be found there, and we've even gotten some good deals on steak. It seems as though the Archer Farms brand has expanded along with the grocery department, including a line of tea.

Now, time and time again, I have turned up my nose at grocery store teas. Yet the packaging caught my attention. The attractive silver box featured a photograph of whole leaf tea and and a whole leaf pyramid tea bag. Target is the first grocery brand to offer a whole leaf teabag, as far as I know. I perused the flavors, finding some that reminded me of Mighty Leaf flavors, and finally picked up a box of Chocolate Berry Earl Grey, intrigued by the idea of something completely different. Flipping it over to look at the ingredients, I read: "Black tea leaves, rooibos leaves, carob, cocoa shell, organic and natural flavors (including bergamot), licorice root, raspberries, pink pepper." No warning for soy, no artificial flavors. I'm never thrilled to see the words "natural flavors" because there is not a strict definition for that phrase, but it is not always disappointing. So, I tossed it in my basket along with the cheese, eggs, and avocados. (No connection, just some of my favorite things).

I finally got around to trying it this morning after leaving it sitting on my countertop for a week or so. You see, although I love trying new Earl Greys, the berry and chocolate part had me a little worried. I wanted to be sure that I could be fair to the quality of the tea, whether or not I liked the actual flavor. I'm often not fond of berry or fruit flavors in black teas, and chocolate teas often fall flat.

Therefore, imagine my surprise when I couldn't stop slurping this tea in a most unladylike way. The chocolate berry is a more accurate description than Earl Grey. Every sip reminds me of the chocolate covered pomegranate seeds I down at my sister's house. Perhaps it's the inclusion of actual raspberry that makes this cup taste so real and fresh. Perhaps it's the slight teasing of the whiffs of pink peppercorns that keeps me interested enough to think over each sip. And maybe carob works better in tea than actual chocolate for giving that richness. This is one tea that may actually curb that craving for dessert, even without adding sugar.

The tea had none of the dusty bitterness so common to grocery store brands or cheaper brands, and none of the artificial taste that so many of the common tea brands have in their scented teas. I would rank this along with Revolution's teas. And I really can't recommend this flavor enough. I feel like I just ate a chocolate bar, with none of the sugary jitters. Nom nom nom.

September 01, 2010

Tea bricks pop up from time to time. They can be quite decorative, and should remain as decoration, as they are frequently stale. Virginia Mescher wrote the following about brick tea. She has a mission to correct misconceptions about brick tea in the 18th and 19th centuries, so the following is posted with her permission.

"There were a number of compressed teas produced in China. Brick tea made for Russia (higher quality tea that was placed into molds compressed under extreme pressure and dried or coarse tea leaves and dust were pressed and dried. When consumed this tea was infused.) and those made for Tibet and Mongolia (fermented leaves were steamed and mixed with glutinous rice water and other binding substances and pressed into molds. This type of tea was usually boiled with butter, salt and grain which formed some a type of soup.)

I have numerous primary source accounts from 19th century sources that mention tea bricks as being only consumed in Russia, Mongolia and Tibet. These sources date from 1804 through the 1890s

Another type of tea headed for Tibet was baled. The bales were only used to transport the tea (weeds and tea plants were cut together) to the factories were the tea was processed. The bales weighed between 90 to 160 pounds depending upon the shape. As far a I know the bales were only used for transport to Tibet, not to the western world as there were not tea processors in the west in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Cake tea is what we call puerh tea. It is an aged tea that is made into flat and circular cakes about 8" in diameter. It was used mostly as a medicine and a digestive. I don't recall ever seeing a mention of it being imported into the western world. It was probably brought over in the 19th century when the Chinese were brought over as laborers.

Tablet tea was made of fine tea dust and each weighed a few ounces each. The dust was placed in small molds and pressed. There is some evidence that some of these were made for the European market but I've not seen any mention of them.

Ball tea was tea that was compressed into a ball to protect it from changes in humidity and other problems. Caper tea is another name for this type of tea. These balls differed in size and could be quite large. I also did not find any evidence that this type of tea was exported to the western world.

In my research on compressed teas, I found something very interesting; in all the information and directions on making tea, there was nothing about how to prepare tea bricks (the hard ones need to be cut with a hatchet) or any other compressed tea. It would seem if the compressed tea was common enough to be imported to the colonies that we would see some instructions on how to prepare it.

I'm not saying that I have read every book and diary written that contained information about tea. A sea captain or traveler could have brought back a compressed tea as a novelty and prepared it but I really can't see a lady serving a portion of brick tea in the Mongolian style.

Until the 1840s, tea was only produced in China and there were many types of tea produced. (Japan had been cultivating tea for centuries but due to their isolation policy tea was not exported until after 1859.) Native Assam tea had been cultivated in that region of India since 1815 but it was not recognized until 1831; the Assam tea did not taste good and is usually used in blends rather than used alone. Robert Fortune, in 1848, was commissioned by the East India to sneak into China and obtain tea seeds and learn how the Chinese processed their tea. The tea was to be planted in the Himalayan area of India which was comparable to the best tea growing region of China. Fortune was successful and the Darjeeling Tea Company was established in 1860.

Tea was not grown commercially in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) until 1867 and not exported to the west (London) until 1873. "